You can determine which ability your Machop will evolve into based on its PID, but if it was bred, you will not be able to calculate that based on its IVs. In fact, even if it was caught in the wild, you'd have a tough time doing so, because most IV spreads produce more than one PID.

I believe goldursaring made a post on GameFAQs that gave some insight on the Colosseum/XD RNG in an explanation of why shinies are more rare in the GCN games than on handhelds. I forget the exact content of the post, but I recall something like four numbers are generated at the beginning that affect IV spreads or something to that effect. Perhaps PMing goldursaring will shed some light on the subject? I don't know the full extent of his knowledge on the matter though, so I don't know if he knows much beyond that.

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yes, I explained it to him like this:

From what is known about col/XD pokemon is that they are based on numbers generated on the file (it DOES NOT restart apon making a new game, you will have to erase the file from the gamecube menu in order to get a new number set), plus a strange RNG. It also xors one pair of your numbers by a number too high to produce a shiny pokemon, meaning that for some people, they will never get a shiny that is produced by that number!

On the note of the unknown, I believe other than what's already mentioned, Wondercards in D/P supposedly have a different RNG than what D/P uses for most Pokémon. I remember Tangerine mentioned in an old debate thread of the legality of Wondercards that he knew people looking into the algorithm, but I don't know what's become of that. Wondercards deserve to be looked at, seeing as how Darkrai and Manaphy (though both have been available at events) can be obtained from the upcoming Pokémon Ranger game.

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Wondercard is being looked at... We already know that it cannot produce shiny pokemon (and the reverse GTS server code also supports this).

From what is known about col/XD pokemon is that they are based on numbers generated on the file (it DOES NOT restart apon making a new game, you will have to erase the file from the gamecube menu in order to get a new number set), plus a strange RNG. It also xors one pair of your numbers by a number too high to produce a shiny pokemon, meaning that for some people, they will never get a shiny that is produced by that number!

Wondercard is being looked at... We already know that it cannot produce shiny pokemon (and the reverse GTS server code also supports this).

It uses the same as wondercard generation. Of course, only mew and phione have wild PIDs.

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Yes, I found goldursaring's post and quoted it in loadingNOW's topic just today :) I did not know about exactly how the "strain" was on shinies, but I guess I do now. Not that it was a large concern for me anyway.

Interesting My Pokémon Ranch uses the same generation as Wondercards. Also interesting that we know for sure they cannot be shiny now. I guess all there really is to do now is to wait for more information on this stuff.

Hmm, interesting. So, I may conclude not only Wondercard (the 4th Gen Event pokémon), but also things like 10 ANIV Celebi (3th Gen Event Pokémon) can't be shiny, even if the algorithm for them is different?

So, unless I am mistaken, the only algorithm(s?) left to crack in the 3rd/4th generations would be Colosseum/XD then? This is something to look into in my opinion, seeing as how Colosseum remains the best way to catch the legendary beasts after all these years. To be able to weed out the illegitimate ones would be great, even if Pokeguy does have a borderline monopoly on GCN Pokèmon. It would also help with soft resetting, as I have a gut feeling that, when combined with yamipoli's short explanation at the top of the page, that the GCN games can produce repetitive results a la Emerald.

It would be nice to know how Synchronize calculations are done, and if they throw off the list of legitimate PIDs from your three Methods.

Also, even if they can't yet be used to verify legitimacy, it would be nice to know the formulas for stat generation with breeding. (with and without Everstone) This would help me a lot with shiny statistics.

mingot yesterday told me that what the article stated as being Method 3 of creating a Pokemon worked incorrectly in the IVtoPID applet, and said that there was a fourth method that corresponded to the incorrect method in the applet. I thus added Method 4 in the article and fixed the applet accordingly so that what it previously outputted as Method 3, it now outputs as Method 4 and implemented the search for the real Method 3.